


Divergence

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel
Genre: Frigga's POV, Genderqueer Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2301053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frigga and Loki come to talk late at night, when she discovers him awake in the library. The conversation is not as comfortable as Frigga would like, but it is honest, at least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divergence

 The light of the stars filters in through the library's skylight, and on the circular rug in the centre of the floor lies Loki, several books stacked at his hip. His hands rest on his chest, folded atop each other, and he stares up at the night sky through the glass, expression impassive.

He doesn't notice her, because she isn't letting him sense her. One day, he'll be able to regardless, she's quite certain - he'll be able to see through her illusions as she so often can see through his. But not yet.

Her son is yet young.

Frigga lets the magic fade, showing herself as she steps into the library. Loki pretends that he doesn't see her for a moment, keeping his expression blank, and then he does look up, watching her with his soft eyes.

Oh, how she loves him.

"Mother." He says softly, and he sits up, resting his elbow on his knee (she doesn't say that he has adopted that particular position from Fandral, just as she never points out how the way he strokes through his own hair is adopted from Thor, or that he has modelled his stride, knowingly or not, from his father's), and looks at her for a few moments. "Why are you awake, mother? I'm not keeping you with my ca-"

"No, Loki. The candle has not disturbed me." She says softly. It hovers in the air to the side, brightened and coloured with something artificial of Loki's own creation - it's like he's taken a spare star from the sky he's watching and set it to spin in the air. He can create things of such _beauty,_ Loki can, when it truly suits him. "What kept me from sleeping was thought of my son's restlesness."

"Thor sleeps like a babe." Loki says with the barest hint of bitterness, and she shakes her head. "Sorry." He says, after an extensive pause, and with that he looks at his feet. He still wears his boots, his day clothes of light armour. She thinks, tiredly, that he ought be dressed for bed, but gone are the days where she could tuck him in at night.

"It's alright, Loki." Frigga says, and she moves to sit on the rug beside him, her nightgown no doubt more comfortable than his leathers. "Tell me, my son, what keeps you here?"

He lies back again, his head on the ground, and he looks up at her instead of the stars, but with the same quiet admiration in his eyes. That will end too, one day.

"Will there come a day, Mother," Loki whispers, and she sees the glimmer of a tear at his eye before the illusion covers it over. "Where they no longer call them _tricks_?"

Ah. She reaches out and takes his hand, interlinking his fingers with her own, and his hands are slender, not broad and calloused in the way Thor's are. "No." She says, and she affectionately strokes her thumb over the back of his hand. "No, my son. Not in my lifetime, nor in yours."

Loki wrenches his gaze to look from her to the stars above, and his expression twists with distaste. She waits patiently, and for that patience she is rewarded, for eventually he speaks again, "Even when they do say "magic" it is with scorn on their tongues. They call it a woman's weapon."

"It is." Frigga says. "All weapons are women's weapons. You do not truly think aught belongs to man?" Loki laughs and she pats his hand with her spare before pulling both into her own lap. "Besides, dearheart, what does man or woman mean to you?" Loki flinches, staring at her with panicked, wide eyes for a second. She regards him strictly, and he schools his expression into one of neutrality as she has taught him over time.

"I have told _no one._ " He stresses firmly, and she smiles at him, in the saddest of fashions.

"No." She agrees. "You haven't. But it is I who sees you when you do not know you are being seen. In whatever form you choose. Do you prefer man or woman?"

"I prefer neither." He murmurs. "I like it most when those around me cannot tell." It strains him to tell her this: he would rather tell no one anything, and fester in his silence and his secrets. It is for that reason that she reaches out and gently pats his knee.

"Can you tell?" He takes in a slow breath, and looks from her to the stars again. The question hangs, unanswered, until she decides to ask another. "Will you tell your brother?"

"Never." Frigga frowns at him for a moment.

"You do not trust him?" She asks, and she does not disguise her unhappiness at the idea.

"I trust him to tell Father." Loki says stonily, and Frigga opens her mouth, but then closes it with a sigh. Odin, she is certain, would push no judgement for it, but he can be harsh with his words, and to add this would be ammunition to the pile he already has stocked. "They would say, if he knew, if they knew, that it is a trick also. That it is not who I am, but a farce. I-I _cannot_ -"

"I understand." She says, when he stops his sentence unfinished and lacks the heart to continue its course. "You wish for them to respect you. To view you well. They would not do so if they thought you a man confused."

"Even if I am not a man confused." Loki says, and he speaks with such inner pain that her own eyes prick with tears, and she hides them as flawlessly as he is learning to.

"Even then." She says in the quietest voice she can muster. "Oh, my sweet child." She murmurs, and she does not reach for his hand again because he has carefully drawn it to his chest, and she has no wish to force more roles on him that he does not wish to take, even that of the boy who will let his mother hold his hand. "I am so sorry."

He presses his lips together, and the fa _ç_ ade flickers for the barest of seconds, and she glimpses a face reddened with a flush of blood and the drip of new tears, his cheeks stained and his lips quivering. The barest of seconds that no other in Asgard would notice, bar her.

Frigga doesn't mention it. He deserves better from his mother.

"If I were to become king-" He hopes and hopes he will have that power in his hands, and yet she knows as well as he does it will never happen. He wants it too badly - and he would do badly with it.

"It would change nothing." He crumples, the back of his head hitting the rug beneath him harder than she'd like.

"Nothing." He agrees, and it pains him to do so, as she can see. He is so beautiful, her Loki, and he can create such beautiful things. She worries more and more, with each passing day, that one day his penchant for beauty will fail him, crushed under the weight of bitterness, pain, envy and hatred. "I love you, Mother."

"I love you too, Loki. With all my heart." Frigga returns, and then she says, "Your brother-"

"I hear him." Loki says, and all the sadness is gone from him in a second - he is confident, warm. The illusion is strong because by necessity it is practised - by the time Thor's footsteps are no longer faint at the end of the corridor, by the time he is dipping his head into the room to look at them, they are laid down on their backs side by side, discussing the fading stars and reddening dawn light above their heads.

"Mother, Loki!" Thor says delightedly, and he beams at them both because he does not know. Oh, how she loves him. How she wishes she could keep both Loki and Thor safe forever, together, but wishes are so rarely made to be granted. "Come, let us break fast together!"

"Let's." Loki says, and he stands, offering Frigga his slender, lovely hand. He will excuse himself early, she expects, to cry alone for a time. She takes his hand, standing.

"I must put on some clothes." She says, as pretense for the exact same thing.

They are like in some ways, mother and son.

 _Child_. Mother and _child._ A bath will serve to disguse her tears until the emotion can be suppressed, she thinks, as she makes her way down the corridor.

It is worth something, at least, that she hears Loki laugh with his brother as she walks away. If he can feign mirth, he is not so far away from the emotion that he cannot still feel it. Not yet: for Loki, there remains hope. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Also on Tumblr.](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/post/97422355348/divergences)
> 
> And I've got a [fic giveaway](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/post/95584589483/thats-right-folks-hi-there-im-dictionary) going on at the moment. If you wanna win a 7.5k word free commission of your choice from me - draw is on Monday - then you know what to do.


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